One of my favourite websites is our own www.thailandguidebook.com. It started as a student project where they put together information on every province in Thailand. A large group of students worked together to type up information provided to us by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). It was a simple site with no high...
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TOUR 1: The Erawan Museum, Ancient Siam, Crocodile Farm and finishing with a seaside meal at Bangsaen 2. Samut Prakan Province is home to the new international airport at Suvarnabhumi and is literally on the doorstep to Bangkok. It also has some amazing and impressive attractions. However, it doesn’t really receive many independent travellers....
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I had not been to Pai since my second Thailand holiday in 2002. It doesn’t really make a convenient weekend getaway if you rely on public transport or your two wheels. However, it was the perfect thing to do in my friend’s car. Riding up and down hills smoothly, speaking my mother tongue for...
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The participants in the Chang(e) Elephant Caravan have finally reached their destination after their trek across the plains of Central Thailand. The five elephants and Greenpeace supporters set off from the outskirts of Khao Yai National Park fourteen days ago with the purpose of bringing attention to global warming. They are calling on Barack...
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(The following is a brief Thai>English translation from various local news sources) At 10 in the morning of 24 September, Mr Sanan, administrative chief of Phatthalung province was in charge of perhaps the first ever televised wedding between endangered Sakai people. The Sakai is an indigenous tribe who live in the deep southern jungles...
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Thai food is certainly world famous these days. It has been estimated that there are now Thai restaurants in 13,000 locations around the world. These range from fast-food take-aways to up-market restaurants. Many of them have been set up by Thai expatriates living abroad. But there are also many restaurants run by foreigners who...
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Hardly a week goes without someone sending me an email out of the blue via www.thai-blogs.com. Very often it’s just an old friend/acquaintance of mine whose found me blogs by chance, then occasionally an email concerning an old blog of mine. Rarely, however, do I get an email as touching as one received a...
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It is September again, and the neighbourhood kids are buzzing with excitement: they like to roam around in the fields and near the river collecting rhino beetles. These magnificent insects are claimed to be one of the strongest species in the world. Surprisingly, they use their power to fight each other for access to...
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One of the first Thai bloggers in Thailand was Panrit “Gor” Daoruang who started back in 1997 when he was only 12 years old. He was blogging about his daily life at a time when people didn’t really know what blogs were all about. For him it started as a school project to write...
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Recently, we were invited over to Suvarnabhumi Airport to watch an Emergency Exercise involving a natural disaster. All members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) must have plans for emergency situations. They have to conduct a partial emergency exercise at least once a year and a full scale emergency exercise once every two...
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This is a simple side dish that you can do as an appetizer. In the ingredients pictured below, you can see wide noodles, a mixture of chicken, tofu and garlic, bean sprouts, dried shrimp and sliced egg in the middle. Prepare the mixture first by finely grinding cilantro root, garlic and pepper. Heat some...
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This is continuing my interview with Peter Robinson, who is probably better known in Thailand as “Phra Farang”, the foreign monk. (Click here for part one.) Peter spent ten years as a monk before finally disrobing in order to spend more time with his student charity,The SET Foundation (SET). I will be talking more...
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One of the best books about Buddhism in Thailand is undoubtedly “Phra Farang: An English Monk in Thailand” by Phra Peter Pannapadipo. Even if you are not interested in becoming a monk yourself, his vivid description of his ten years as a foreign monk in Thailand will give you an insight into Thai life...
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For many years my favourite guidebook has been the Lonely Planet. This has always been my first choice for its comprehensive look at tourist attractions in just about any country in the world. In Thailand, the person who is most associated with guidebooks is Joe Cummings whose name is well-known among backpackers. Although Joe...
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Just into part one only, but Big Trouble in Tourist Thailand, the UK documentary series on Bravo TV, has already caused much controversy, and especially in regards to the Phuket jetski scam that Richard has just blogged about. Thanks to the raw footage, one typical jetski scammer is already behind bars. Rather sensational the...
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This is a simple dish of salty fried prawns, or “kung tod khem” in Thai. You can see the salty prawns in the picture below. Preparation is simple for this dish. Wash the prawns and then place them in a bowl where you need to rub them with salt. While you are heating up...
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Thailand is in big trouble again. Its tourism industry was already facing disaster last year with the prolonged airport closure. Things looked like it was starting to get better but the situation has just been going from bad to worse. This year Thailand has received a lot of negative press from the international media....
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Today is an auspicious day in Thailand for all Thai people. Today is the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year in the 21st Century which translates as 09 09 09. The number nine in Thai is “gao” which sounds similar to another word which means to “move forward”. Tata Young...
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In the olden days in Thailand, most people lived along canals and the only way they could travel around was by boat. At major intersections farmers would come together to create floating markets. With the building of roads and modern houses, many of these markets and riverside villages fell into a state of disrepair....
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Everybody knows Muay Thai which is the popular Thai boxing sport known around the world. This version that I went to watch at the weekend at the Bang Phli Riverside Market in Samut Prakan is called Muay Talay. This translates as “sea boxing”. The rules are simple. Two people sit astride a pole which...
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